original inventor - benefits (as you say in this case he'd be paid "a lot of money") marketer/distributor - benefits (gets a new product, takes a risk) general public - benefits (a new product is widely available)
I think they used to be embarrassed by it but are no longer. I also think they are better at spinning it, or suppressing reporting of it, or negating it's impact (in part by say, smearing the person being civilly disobedient.)
This is because socialist have found demanding perfect behavior a useful tactic. Note how they find the crusades "disgraceful" for example, while if you know your history you will find it very hard to criticize the first 3 or so crusades. There is zero nuance. A person is either perfect or a completely immoral asshole to democrats these days.
They learned from muslim states to create a "shame" culture, in order to gain more power. History does have precedent on this, however, and all shame cultures have failed miserably (however sometimes taking others with them).
Actually you might want to look up DWDM and CWDM. It really depends on the cable, but even with systems commercially available (if a bit pricey) today, you can do up to 80 channels on a single fiber strand, allowing for 800 Gbit per fiber line (half duplex), which means you can achieve 800 Gbit per fiber pair full duplex.
This obviously depends on a lot of things, the most important parts are the retransmission stations on the cable (every 50 km or so), as they're very hard, and VERY expensive to replace. Generally half the fiber strands are backups, and all cables connect only to either even or uneven retransmission stations, allowing the cable to keep functioning with the loss of any one retransmission station (a frequent occurance). Problem is that for repairs a ship needs to come by, retrieve 3 transmission stations from their 200 meter depths, and get engineers close enough to conduct repairs, while preventing other ships from crossing the exposed 200-or-so kilometer of exposed cable. This is one of those ships.
Btw these retransmission stations are sinking pods that "float" below the ocean at a given depth (generally 200 meters or so). They are powered by a high voltage current transmission system in the cable itself.
*ahem* civil disobedience means breaking laws AND accepting the punishment doled out for it. So if you're truly letting patriotism guiding you, then you have reported this illegal stuff to your local police station YOURSELF, right ? No need for privacy in databases to uncover your illegal stuff.
The Democratic party wants to get out of Iraq because, well, we WON. Saddam is out of power. His constant genocides stopped. He is no longer training terrorists -- in fact, the only terrorists in Iraq are a hell of a lot closer to the patriots of the American Revolution than the dimwitted asshats who attacked in 2001.
Are you trying to be humorous ? This is completely laughable. Everybody know just how much democrats consider the Iraq war won.
Besides, if the US gets out now, the genocides will immediately restart. The US must maintain a significant presence there for at least some 10 years or so.
You're blowing a lot of liberal fuses here. Massive violence, unleashed on largely civilians, by the US, for a prolonged period of time, with massive casualties on the US side (not nearly as massive as on the enemy's side, but massive nonetheless).
And this was a good thing. In fact it wasn't just good, in fact 64 years later people (those civilians that were targeted) are still holding relatively massive ceremonies for thanking the US of unleashing said violence on, again, largely on them.
Because, as bad as the US was in WWII, it was a lot better than the other guys.
Just like every other war. The US soldiers were no angels. Nobody's really claiming that. But every conflict they were a hell of a lot better than the guys they killed, and every retreat by the US military was immediately followed by genocide (e.g. Vietnam, Korea, Gulf War I,...)
Today, liberals claim the opposite. They're "postmodern". Every ideology is equally good. Islamic ideology is equally good as american. In practice, that means blowing up your neighbour by kidnapping a mentally ill girl and strapping a remotely-controlled bomb to her, because you disagree with him not stoning his daughter to death for looking at a boy, is equally good as bringing down saddam.
Constant genocides was how Saddam came to power, and how he stayed in power. Of course fighting against an army that commits genocide as a matter of policy is morally reprehensible, right ? Well that's how democrats view things.
That's liberal (liberal as in the democrats ideology) ideology for you. Obviously it's wrong. That's why their "every ideology is equally true" mantra has to be defended by constant violence obviously.
Have you ever worked outside America ? While I agree that america is not a pure capitalist society you should compare it a few times to "equally free" european nations.
Why don't you try starting a company in France. Just for kicks. Or in any European country really. I've actually heard believeable claims, in econmic terms, China is more free market than Europe (and *much* less free in any other department obviously).
And that's comparing America to the supposedly other free market nations. If one starts comparing with northern afrika or the middle east (excepting Israel), you will really find a few rules that will make you think (such as s.a.'s rule that all managers must be saudi nationals to give one relevant example). Or the fact that all property from a number of peoples (e.g. palestinians) is fair game to Jordan's justice system. In Jordan, you can steal from a palestinian, and even kill one in the attempt, and the police will not charge you for anything. You see, in Jordan, Palestinians are not considered humans. Or that large areas of the country are of limits to certain ethnicities.
I'm not claiming the us is 100% capitalistic. I'm saying it leads the pack, and, due to being mostly a federation, large areas in America are at least 10% more capitalistic than the second place.
But no real message. So every different group thinks he will work to their advantage, because he hasn't comitted to doing anything. He's pro-gun and anti-gun. He's pro-abortion and contra-abortion. He's...
Vague context "change" (ie forcing all those other bastards to agree with me) without filling in the blanks that would burst the bubble surrounding him.
Do you even see the complete and utter inconsistency in your own thoughts ?
- The problem is solely with the current administration and its foreign policies as of late.
Really ? Have you read a few 1935 papers ? There you will find some SERIOUS hate-america articles. You actually acknowledge that the hate for america didn't start with the current administration, yet you lay blame squarely at it's feet.
I truly hope that pointing out this idiocy will cause you to think about it. You (as a person) merely hate america because it's popular to do so. That brings the question to : "WHY is it popular to do so". And you will find that it's the symbols and the freedom, I'm afraid. That America is a living, breathing abomination to every leftist theory that ever existed. According to Europeans, Americans should be rioting in the street and killing their leaders.
And they're not. That means marx (and all so-called "moderate" lefties with him) are wrong. America doesn't conform to the European view of the world, and it doesn't conform so badly as that it is living proof that worldview is wrong, so it must die.
Yes, but only if there's no interbreeding. If humans hunt humans at night, and do so in teams of black against white, black may well have the advantage and commit what you'd call a genocide. That's a hell of a special case though.
I would agree with that assessment. However I would like to point out that the "normal" case is that of limited resources.
The problem you will find in the histories of all nomadic cultures (arabs, native americans,...). A region grows near or beyond the capacity of the land to support. The total accessible landmass can support, under optimal conditions, say 40.000 people, and this year, population grew to, say 38.000 people, and for obvious reasons, conditions are not optimal.
That would be the normal case that makes evolution work. Most natural religions (created by people who knew no agriculture) embody this concept). In essence they play "zero-sum" games : the only way I can guarantee my own and my kids' survival is to kill (either actively or passively) others. Now you might say that fortifying a fertile area, which is an option, and letting people outside starve, is not genocide. However the results are the same, and will result in the survival of isolated families. Obviously in the case of limited resources and strong family ties, interbreeding will be VERY limited, and scores of people will die.
E.g. the muslim religion describes this type of zero-sum game. There must always be war, and the purpose of war is to kill (except captured women, whom, if young enough, can serve as breeders). This is the concept of jihad. "lesser" jihad would be actually picking up weapons and going out to kill and capture. "higher" jihad would be to do the same, but without using weapons. Or, people can give of their own resources to guarentee the survival of people captured by the muslims, thereby making sure that next time muslims have a better starting position (either more people due to abundant food, given in ransom, or more land, or both). Obviously the net results for outsiders is that the demands of muslims never cease, no matter how many concessions they do, until the outsiders are exterminated. And islam allows no interbreeding.
You will find a very similar concept (war in order to kill neighbouring tribes) in the native american religion. Normally they were peaceful, and lived of the land, yes, but if there was a dispute about hunting grounds, war, and using lethal force against their neighbors, was the preferred course of action. This was the way to deal with any perceived threat to the hunting grounds.
The same concept is represented in the aboriginals' religion.
Some, mostly more modern, religions, like hinduism, buddhism, judaism and christianity take another route : a family is to use the earth to prosper and procreate, implying a belief that for every shortage in food there is a way to use the earth to fix that shortage (judaism goes very far in this principle, and describes a number of means to do this : food stores, fertilizing, leaving bare land (the 7 year rule), burning the remains of the harvest on new land, irrigation,... all these can be found in the bible and also in the vedas*). Personally, even if evolution were right, I'd prefer to believe this, even in the absence of proof. If it is truly impossible to fix the shortage, a portion of the population is to attempt to migrate before the problem becomes critical (this is what, obviously, colonization is all about).
* you will not find irrigation in the vedas, and you will not find burning woodland in the bible, but...
I never claimed that the genocides had to be comitted by members of the same species. But your term extinction is also not fair. It should be "selective extinction caused by someone/something", to point out that the extinction hits everyone EXCEPT one (or a few) "subraces", and that these extinction events are not random, but they tend to be caused by either the species itself, another species or nature. I do believe most extinctions are caused by the first 2, as migration is nearly always a solution in the third case. If migration is not a solution, the resulting competition for scarce resources will make members of the same species (who defend their turf) responsible for the extinction of others.
Wealthier families tend naturally to have fewer children, and invest more resources in their development. Poorer families tend to have more kids and put fewer resources into them, hoping that some will make it to maturity. By making everyone wealthier we can automatically decrease the birthrate. (That's assuming we don't find ways to open up new resources in space for example - not that hard with nuclear rockets instead of the chemically-fueled contraptions we're settling for now.)
You paint this of as if it's a universal truth, and it most defineately isn't. In fact not so long ago the exact reverse was true. It would be more accurate to say, imho, that as long as food is basically free, poorer families will have more kids than richer ones, if food is scarce (like it inevitably becomes), the reverse will be true (e.g. in medieval europe rich families had many, many more kids than poorer ones). Also I tend to think it's just along specific lines that there are more kids. Farmers, for example, have a good use for kids, and therefore tend to have more. People working in the "services industry" tend to have fewer kids. Perhaps farmers will return to wealth for some reason, and I doubt they'd change their kids policies.
Is your "theory" really different from what I say ? I don't see the error you claim.
E.g. : Creature A has a mutated gene that affects a hormone that affects a muscle that affects running. It's just a bit faster than the rest. Creature A has better odds of escaping from the predators. Creature A therefore has many young before growing old and slow and finally becoming something's dinner.
So there is a constant - and lethal - attack going on on the species as a whole, and this regularly claims lives - except for those of a certain family/"subrace" (a gene obviously propagates in the same way as the species, that is to say in families and races). Would it be fair to say that if people hunted eachother at night, for whatever reason, that black people would be "more protected", for example. I think that would be a fair application of what you say.
It could even become a cultural genocide. It is trivial to see that all polygamous marriages with option of divorce don't protect against STD's. So if AIDS were to become a lot more virulent (or any STD really), obviously orthodox Christians and Jews would experience much less casualties than muslims, and other polygamous cultures.
If this is not a genocide (killing members of a species, except members with a specific gene, ie. members of a specific race), with active participants (the "predators", who might be of the same race as the victims), then what is ?
I have a question. Evolution basically works due to a constant sequence of genocides. Other parties may be active or passive participants in these genocides, but they basically follow eachother constantly.
Either others actively participate in these genocides (e.g. the relation between different species of mouses and the participating eagle), or they are merely passive participants, competing for resources (e.g. the fact that trees will attempt to cut off other plants from the sunlight, monopolizing it).
Now we come to my difficulty. Exactly what happens if we apply this to humans ? And if it is the straightforward application, ie. humans are also involved in active and passive genocides, even if only by competing for limited means and that there is nothing that can ever be done to stop it...
Then I have 3 questions : 1) "believers" in evolution always leave this part out, and a lot of them paint themselves of as pacifist. To say that evolution's position is non-pacifist is an extreme understatement ? 2) wouldn't you rather believe that capitalism (with it's theory of continuous growth, thereby enabling humanity to take care of any offspring it has, however many they are, thereby negating the need for active genocides within the human race) is right ? It seems trivial that "redivision of wealth" policies like e.g. the democrats propose can only lead to more active genocides (even if they are not expected tomorrow in the US, their arrival under those politics cannot be prevented according to evolution). 3) same question, but for environimentalism and "lasting" development. The basic premise of evolution is that no matter what resources you have it's going to run out. So either environmentalism must go for a "one child" policy (world-wide, so presumably imposed by violence) and it's not a given that they could support the current 6 billion humans, much less the, oh, 15 billion, by 2050.
Unless conflicting positions don't bother you at all. But obviously reality will come crashing down hard if you go for a conflicting position.
Here's a muslim belief (it's the literal word of their "god") :
"All non-muslims are less than the filthies animals because they refuse to accept islam" (quran 8:55)
How exactly do you excuse holding that particular belief ? Or were you only defending the muslims that don't follow the quran (that would be none of them btw).
It's telling that you do not waste arguments. Not a single letter of your post is devoted to clarifying why anything I say is wrong, you just state outright that it must be wrong. How do you illustrate this wrongness, how do you justify your thinking ? Well, with an insult, and nothing else.
That is an indication that you refute my claims, not because you reasonably disagree with them (in that case arguments would come very easily to your keyboard), but because your beliefs run counter to it. In short you're demanding respect for your ideology. Note also that this is exactly what you are accusing me of. In short you are projecting your flaws onto me, in order to hold on to your belief, which you know to be nonsense.
The only tyrannical part of my ideology is that it plainly states reality wins out always and everywhere, and that we're fools to deny this. Experiment trumps ideology. Looking up facts trumps ideology (e.g. the blatant racism in the quran trumps your postmodern ideology that islam is not racist). If you feel reality limits your freedom, then yes, you're probably right, my ideology will limit your freedom as well.
However these are not real limits to freedom. It's just the consequences to your actions, and the fact that you're responsible for them. (Such as taking responsability for the fact that your position is not the peaceful position, because you realise perfectly well that what you suggest will lead to a huge war tomorrow, and you hold this conviction because it will narrowly avoid a tiny skirmish today, this is not pacifist, it's stupid and lazy. Fighting the small wars should be fought today (such as defending Darfur from it's muslim government) is the pacifist position).
If Mexico or Canada invaded[1] the USA, would you expect support from your European allies?
I would. You don't understand how it works. The only thing that's really wrong with america (for lefties) is it's power, and it's size, and the mere fact that it functions. Not how it's using that power, we're more than happy to buy oil from Iraq, we have no moral standing ourselves (we only shout loudly, but giving up a single percent of GDP for morality is not something any leftie would go for in Europe). In short anything that might kill America, the bastion of capitalism, is considered a good thing for European lefties*. (keep in mind that by American standards, the most "right" parties are really lefties in comparison, certainly to republicans, but mostly also to democrats).
* even though, and I agree on this, it would be a terrible thing indeed
Hate for america is not based on hate for it's citizens, but on american symbols. The capitalism. The military-industrial complex. The space program. The huge cities. The freedom. It is NOT based on any foreign policy that the US implements. Yes Iraq didn't help, but to say it's the cause of anti-americanism anywhere (except perhaps amongst the baathists of iraq) is not just delusional but outright danguerous deception.
Europe is anti-america because it's the devil. It shows that, while lefty politics are failing all over the globe, policies to the extreme right, and extreme liberty amongst citizens largely holding the Christian faith is a working, stable state structure.
Therefore the mere EXISTENCE of America is the enemy (of European, extreme-and-"moderate" lefty parties, and as I said, the Vlaams Belang of belgium is located to the LEFT of the democrats). Not really anything America does.
You might want to follow that ancient advise "don't listen to what a person says, look at what he does, and you will know his thoughts".
You really don't understand this. Obviously an ideology must be free, for it's members to be free (anywhere). You cannot be a free dictator, for example (except if you really are the one dictator amongst millions of non-free people). You cannot be a free communist. You cannot be a free muslim (since allah -literally- states that all muslims are slaves (e.g. quran 9:111, or just look up what a muslim's purpose of life is)).
This is not my agenda, nor hatred, it is a simple fact.
If it is not according to you, please explain why a country like Saudi Arabia, where this "minority" has as complete a freedom as they could possibly have anywhere, is a completely non-free country. Also in the west, the more muslims live in an area, the less free it is considered by both the muslims themselves and the (sometimes former) original inhabitants. This is not a coincidence.
Asking "why aren't muslims free", is like asking "why isn't red blue". In short the problem is in the definition. Someone who believes he is a slave is necessarily unfree. A free person is necessarily a non-muslim (doesn't believe in allah's statement that he is a slave), and a muslim is necessarily not free. There isn't any policy, there is nothing that can be done, to change this (except of course, changing islam itself).
In case you wish to argue the stupid point "sure he says that, but he also says...", please keep in mind that this is just the very beginning of allah's demands on muslims. And obviously people who ignore allah's demands are not muslims, by definition.
The difference between moderate muslims and "extremist" muslims is not that they think all infidels should be killed, but the manner in which this is to happen (a cruel, continuous global war versus creating denial and replacing original people followed by civil war). Kosovo, including the 1992 war is "mooderate" islam. Iran, 1972 and the 20-or-so years before is extremist islam.
Really ? Then why don't you try attracting attention to the statistical correlation between rape cases and muslim population in European cities. The correlation is real (and perfectly calculateable, and as you know this implies that either rapes make someone muslim, or that muslims rape (a lot) more than othres).
Let's see, why don't we, whether or not slashdot (where the "champions of freedom" rule) not burying this post, shall we ?
Mob mentality, which is being pushed like hell in all european countries, is the opposite of freedom. And it's gaining. "Human rights" are killing freedom of expression, and freedom of religion in all european countries. We just like to lie about it.
Same with other figures, like unemployment for example, it's at least triple or quadruple that of the US, depending on the country. But if you just look at the numbers, you'd say they're about equal. This is because we lie (most of the active population that doesn't work is, for various reasons, not counted).
"all non-muslims are lower than the filthiest of beasts because they reject islam" - quran 8:55
Unless you wish to argue that the quran isn't part of "moderate muslims" understanding. Oh by the way, the next verses are about how infidels should be killed when muslims have the chance.
So let's define, according to you who/what is a muslim : -> moderate muslim : either hasn't read the quran (nor sunnah nor...) at all, or knowingly disobeys their own "God" -> extreme muslim : everyone else
Are we in agreement ? Why don't you go and check out whether or not the god of the muslims did or did not say this (quran is the literal word of god according to these poeple).
Slashdot Mirror
"Not a good deal"
Why not ? Let's see the different parties
original inventor - benefits (as you say in this case he'd be paid "a lot of money")
marketer/distributor - benefits (gets a new product, takes a risk)
general public - benefits (a new product is widely available)
Exactly how is this not a good deal ?
Actually, ever tried to create some shareware in this FOSS climate ? You should try it before making blanket statements like that.
I think they used to be embarrassed by it but are no longer. I also think they are better at spinning it, or suppressing reporting of it, or negating it's impact (in part by say, smearing the person being civilly disobedient.)
This is because socialist have found demanding perfect behavior a useful tactic. Note how they find the crusades "disgraceful" for example, while if you know your history you will find it very hard to criticize the first 3 or so crusades. There is zero nuance. A person is either perfect or a completely immoral asshole to democrats these days.
They learned from muslim states to create a "shame" culture, in order to gain more power. History does have precedent on this, however, and all shame cultures have failed miserably (however sometimes taking others with them).
Actually you might want to look up DWDM and CWDM. It really depends on the cable, but even with systems commercially available (if a bit pricey) today, you can do up to 80 channels on a single fiber strand, allowing for 800 Gbit per fiber line (half duplex), which means you can achieve 800 Gbit per fiber pair full duplex.
This obviously depends on a lot of things, the most important parts are the retransmission stations on the cable (every 50 km or so), as they're very hard, and VERY expensive to replace. Generally half the fiber strands are backups, and all cables connect only to either even or uneven retransmission stations, allowing the cable to keep functioning with the loss of any one retransmission station (a frequent occurance). Problem is that for repairs a ship needs to come by, retrieve 3 transmission stations from their 200 meter depths, and get engineers close enough to conduct repairs, while preventing other ships from crossing the exposed 200-or-so kilometer of exposed cable. This is one of those ships.
Btw these retransmission stations are sinking pods that "float" below the ocean at a given depth (generally 200 meters or so). They are powered by a high voltage current transmission system in the cable itself.
Wikipedia entry on WDM
*ahem* civil disobedience means breaking laws AND accepting the punishment doled out for it. So if you're truly letting patriotism guiding you, then you have reported this illegal stuff to your local police station YOURSELF, right ? No need for privacy in databases to uncover your illegal stuff.
The Democratic party wants to get out of Iraq because, well, we WON. Saddam is out of power. His constant genocides stopped. He is no longer training terrorists -- in fact, the only terrorists in Iraq are a hell of a lot closer to the patriots of the American Revolution than the dimwitted asshats who attacked in 2001.
Are you trying to be humorous ? This is completely laughable. Everybody know just how much democrats consider the Iraq war won.
Besides, if the US gets out now, the genocides will immediately restart. The US must maintain a significant presence there for at least some 10 years or so.
You're blowing a lot of liberal fuses here. Massive violence, unleashed on largely civilians, by the US, for a prolonged period of time, with massive casualties on the US side (not nearly as massive as on the enemy's side, but massive nonetheless).
...)
And this was a good thing. In fact it wasn't just good, in fact 64 years later people (those civilians that were targeted) are still holding relatively massive ceremonies for thanking the US of unleashing said violence on, again, largely on them.
Because, as bad as the US was in WWII, it was a lot better than the other guys.
Just like every other war. The US soldiers were no angels. Nobody's really claiming that. But every conflict they were a hell of a lot better than the guys they killed, and every retreat by the US military was immediately followed by genocide (e.g. Vietnam, Korea, Gulf War I,
Today, liberals claim the opposite. They're "postmodern". Every ideology is equally good. Islamic ideology is equally good as american. In practice, that means blowing up your neighbour by kidnapping a mentally ill girl and strapping a remotely-controlled bomb to her, because you disagree with him not stoning his daughter to death for looking at a boy, is equally good as bringing down saddam.
Constant genocides was how Saddam came to power, and how he stayed in power. Of course fighting against an army that commits genocide as a matter of policy is morally reprehensible, right ? Well that's how democrats view things.
That's liberal (liberal as in the democrats ideology) ideology for you. Obviously it's wrong. That's why their "every ideology is equally true" mantra has to be defended by constant violence obviously.
Have you ever worked outside America ? While I agree that america is not a pure capitalist society you should compare it a few times to "equally free" european nations.
Why don't you try starting a company in France. Just for kicks. Or in any European country really. I've actually heard believeable claims, in econmic terms, China is more free market than Europe (and *much* less free in any other department obviously).
And that's comparing America to the supposedly other free market nations. If one starts comparing with northern afrika or the middle east (excepting Israel), you will really find a few rules that will make you think (such as s.a.'s rule that all managers must be saudi nationals to give one relevant example). Or the fact that all property from a number of peoples (e.g. palestinians) is fair game to Jordan's justice system. In Jordan, you can steal from a palestinian, and even kill one in the attempt, and the police will not charge you for anything. You see, in Jordan, Palestinians are not considered humans. Or that large areas of the country are of limits to certain ethnicities.
I'm not claiming the us is 100% capitalistic. I'm saying it leads the pack, and, due to being mostly a federation, large areas in America are at least 10% more capitalistic than the second place.
But no real message. So every different group thinks he will work to their advantage, because he hasn't comitted to doing anything. He's pro-gun and anti-gun. He's pro-abortion and contra-abortion. He's ...
Vague context "change" (ie forcing all those other bastards to agree with me) without filling in the blanks that would burst the bubble surrounding him.
Do you even see the complete and utter inconsistency in your own thoughts ?
- The problem is solely with the current administration and its foreign policies as of late.
Really ? Have you read a few 1935 papers ? There you will find some SERIOUS hate-america articles. You actually acknowledge that the hate for america didn't start with the current administration, yet you lay blame squarely at it's feet.
I truly hope that pointing out this idiocy will cause you to think about it. You (as a person) merely hate america because it's popular to do so. That brings the question to : "WHY is it popular to do so". And you will find that it's the symbols and the freedom, I'm afraid. That America is a living, breathing abomination to every leftist theory that ever existed. According to Europeans, Americans should be rioting in the street and killing their leaders.
And they're not. That means marx (and all so-called "moderate" lefties with him) are wrong. America doesn't conform to the European view of the world, and it doesn't conform so badly as that it is living proof that worldview is wrong, so it must die.
So we shouldn't fund religious groups ... and we shouldn't fund secular groups ... nice.
... Total : $0 (no religious and/or secular groups funded)
That should make next year's budget really simple
This post should be modded +5, Insightful
(Belgium, for example, has failed to form a working government, and nobody even cares)
Heyhey now, don't let something stupid like reality disturb anti-americanism ! That's just racist !
Yes, but only if there's no interbreeding. If humans hunt humans at night, and do so in teams of black against white, black may well have the advantage and commit what you'd call a genocide. That's a hell of a special case though.
...). A region grows near or beyond the capacity of the land to support. The total accessible landmass can support, under optimal conditions, say 40.000 people, and this year, population grew to, say 38.000 people, and for obvious reasons, conditions are not optimal.
... all these can be found in the bible and also in the vedas*). Personally, even if evolution were right, I'd prefer to believe this, even in the absence of proof. If it is truly impossible to fix the shortage, a portion of the population is to attempt to migrate before the problem becomes critical (this is what, obviously, colonization is all about).
...
I would agree with that assessment. However I would like to point out that the "normal" case is that of limited resources.
The problem you will find in the histories of all nomadic cultures (arabs, native americans,
That would be the normal case that makes evolution work. Most natural religions (created by people who knew no agriculture) embody this concept). In essence they play "zero-sum" games : the only way I can guarantee my own and my kids' survival is to kill (either actively or passively) others. Now you might say that fortifying a fertile area, which is an option, and letting people outside starve, is not genocide. However the results are the same, and will result in the survival of isolated families. Obviously in the case of limited resources and strong family ties, interbreeding will be VERY limited, and scores of people will die.
E.g. the muslim religion describes this type of zero-sum game. There must always be war, and the purpose of war is to kill (except captured women, whom, if young enough, can serve as breeders). This is the concept of jihad. "lesser" jihad would be actually picking up weapons and going out to kill and capture. "higher" jihad would be to do the same, but without using weapons. Or, people can give of their own resources to guarentee the survival of people captured by the muslims, thereby making sure that next time muslims have a better starting position (either more people due to abundant food, given in ransom, or more land, or both). Obviously the net results for outsiders is that the demands of muslims never cease, no matter how many concessions they do, until the outsiders are exterminated. And islam allows no interbreeding.
You will find a very similar concept (war in order to kill neighbouring tribes) in the native american religion. Normally they were peaceful, and lived of the land, yes, but if there was a dispute about hunting grounds, war, and using lethal force against their neighbors, was the preferred course of action. This was the way to deal with any perceived threat to the hunting grounds.
The same concept is represented in the aboriginals' religion.
Some, mostly more modern, religions, like hinduism, buddhism, judaism and christianity take another route : a family is to use the earth to prosper and procreate, implying a belief that for every shortage in food there is a way to use the earth to fix that shortage (judaism goes very far in this principle, and describes a number of means to do this : food stores, fertilizing, leaving bare land (the 7 year rule), burning the remains of the harvest on new land, irrigation,
* you will not find irrigation in the vedas, and you will not find burning woodland in the bible, but
I never claimed that the genocides had to be comitted by members of the same species. But your term extinction is also not fair. It should be "selective extinction caused by someone/something", to point out that the extinction hits everyone EXCEPT one (or a few) "subraces", and that these extinction events are not random, but they tend to be caused by either the species itself, another species or nature. I do believe most extinctions are caused by the first 2, as migration is nearly always a solution in the third case. If migration is not a solution, the resulting competition for scarce resources will make members of the same species (who defend their turf) responsible for the extinction of others.
Wealthier families tend naturally to have fewer children, and invest more resources in their development. Poorer families tend to have more kids and put fewer resources into them, hoping that some will make it to maturity. By making everyone wealthier we can automatically decrease the birthrate. (That's assuming we don't find ways to open up new resources in space for example - not that hard with nuclear rockets instead of the chemically-fueled contraptions we're settling for now.)
You paint this of as if it's a universal truth, and it most defineately isn't. In fact not so long ago the exact reverse was true. It would be more accurate to say, imho, that as long as food is basically free, poorer families will have more kids than richer ones, if food is scarce (like it inevitably becomes), the reverse will be true (e.g. in medieval europe rich families had many, many more kids than poorer ones). Also I tend to think it's just along specific lines that there are more kids. Farmers, for example, have a good use for kids, and therefore tend to have more. People working in the "services industry" tend to have fewer kids. Perhaps farmers will return to wealth for some reason, and I doubt they'd change their kids policies.
Is your "theory" really different from what I say ? I don't see the error you claim.
E.g. : Creature A has a mutated gene that affects a hormone that affects a muscle that affects running. It's just a bit faster than the rest. Creature A has better odds of escaping from the predators. Creature A therefore has many young before growing old and slow and finally becoming something's dinner.
So there is a constant - and lethal - attack going on on the species as a whole, and this regularly claims lives - except for those of a certain family/"subrace" (a gene obviously propagates in the same way as the species, that is to say in families and races). Would it be fair to say that if people hunted eachother at night, for whatever reason, that black people would be "more protected", for example. I think that would be a fair application of what you say.
It could even become a cultural genocide. It is trivial to see that all polygamous marriages with option of divorce don't protect against STD's. So if AIDS were to become a lot more virulent (or any STD really), obviously orthodox Christians and Jews would experience much less casualties than muslims, and other polygamous cultures.
If this is not a genocide (killing members of a species, except members with a specific gene, ie. members of a specific race), with active participants (the "predators", who might be of the same race as the victims), then what is ?
I have a question. Evolution basically works due to a constant sequence of genocides. Other parties may be active or passive participants in these genocides, but they basically follow eachother constantly.
...
Either others actively participate in these genocides (e.g. the relation between different species of mouses and the participating eagle), or they are merely passive participants, competing for resources (e.g. the fact that trees will attempt to cut off other plants from the sunlight, monopolizing it).
Now we come to my difficulty. Exactly what happens if we apply this to humans ? And if it is the straightforward application, ie. humans are also involved in active and passive genocides, even if only by competing for limited means and that there is nothing that can ever be done to stop it
Then I have 3 questions :
1) "believers" in evolution always leave this part out, and a lot of them paint themselves of as pacifist. To say that evolution's position is non-pacifist is an extreme understatement ?
2) wouldn't you rather believe that capitalism (with it's theory of continuous growth, thereby enabling humanity to take care of any offspring it has, however many they are, thereby negating the need for active genocides within the human race) is right ? It seems trivial that "redivision of wealth" policies like e.g. the democrats propose can only lead to more active genocides (even if they are not expected tomorrow in the US, their arrival under those politics cannot be prevented according to evolution).
3) same question, but for environimentalism and "lasting" development. The basic premise of evolution is that no matter what resources you have it's going to run out. So either environmentalism must go for a "one child" policy (world-wide, so presumably imposed by violence) and it's not a given that they could support the current 6 billion humans, much less the, oh, 15 billion, by 2050.
Unless conflicting positions don't bother you at all. But obviously reality will come crashing down hard if you go for a conflicting position.
how much ... co2 produced in the creation of this lamp ?
... co2 saved by the heating provided when people get mad at the four hours limit ?
or
how much
Here's a muslim belief (it's the literal word of their "god") :
"All non-muslims are less than the filthies animals because they refuse to accept islam" (quran 8:55)
How exactly do you excuse holding that particular belief ? Or were you only defending the muslims that don't follow the quran (that would be none of them btw).
Now I do have issues with the way that some cultures treat women - Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Saudi Arabia...
... which culture would that be ? Because all the countries you mention have the exact same culture ...
Incidentally
It's telling that you do not waste arguments. Not a single letter of your post is devoted to clarifying why anything I say is wrong, you just state outright that it must be wrong. How do you illustrate this wrongness, how do you justify your thinking ? Well, with an insult, and nothing else.
That is an indication that you refute my claims, not because you reasonably disagree with them (in that case arguments would come very easily to your keyboard), but because your beliefs run counter to it. In short you're demanding respect for your ideology. Note also that this is exactly what you are accusing me of. In short you are projecting your flaws onto me, in order to hold on to your belief, which you know to be nonsense.
The only tyrannical part of my ideology is that it plainly states reality wins out always and everywhere, and that we're fools to deny this. Experiment trumps ideology. Looking up facts trumps ideology (e.g. the blatant racism in the quran trumps your postmodern ideology that islam is not racist). If you feel reality limits your freedom, then yes, you're probably right, my ideology will limit your freedom as well.
However these are not real limits to freedom. It's just the consequences to your actions, and the fact that you're responsible for them. (Such as taking responsability for the fact that your position is not the peaceful position, because you realise perfectly well that what you suggest will lead to a huge war tomorrow, and you hold this conviction because it will narrowly avoid a tiny skirmish today, this is not pacifist, it's stupid and lazy. Fighting the small wars should be fought today (such as defending Darfur from it's muslim government) is the pacifist position).
If Mexico or Canada invaded[1] the USA, would you expect support from your European allies?
I would. You don't understand how it works. The only thing that's really wrong with america (for lefties) is it's power, and it's size, and the mere fact that it functions. Not how it's using that power, we're more than happy to buy oil from Iraq, we have no moral standing ourselves (we only shout loudly, but giving up a single percent of GDP for morality is not something any leftie would go for in Europe). In short anything that might kill America, the bastion of capitalism, is considered a good thing for European lefties*. (keep in mind that by American standards, the most "right" parties are really lefties in comparison, certainly to republicans, but mostly also to democrats).
* even though, and I agree on this, it would be a terrible thing indeed
Hate for america is not based on hate for it's citizens, but on american symbols. The capitalism. The military-industrial complex. The space program. The huge cities. The freedom. It is NOT based on any foreign policy that the US implements. Yes Iraq didn't help, but to say it's the cause of anti-americanism anywhere (except perhaps amongst the baathists of iraq) is not just delusional but outright danguerous deception.
Europe is anti-america because it's the devil. It shows that, while lefty politics are failing all over the globe, policies to the extreme right, and extreme liberty amongst citizens largely holding the Christian faith is a working, stable state structure.
Therefore the mere EXISTENCE of America is the enemy (of European, extreme-and-"moderate" lefty parties, and as I said, the Vlaams Belang of belgium is located to the LEFT of the democrats). Not really anything America does.
You might want to follow that ancient advise "don't listen to what a person says, look at what he does, and you will know his thoughts".
You really don't understand this. Obviously an ideology must be free, for it's members to be free (anywhere). You cannot be a free dictator, for example (except if you really are the one dictator amongst millions of non-free people). You cannot be a free communist. You cannot be a free muslim (since allah -literally- states that all muslims are slaves (e.g. quran 9:111, or just look up what a muslim's purpose of life is)).
...", please keep in mind that this is just the very beginning of allah's demands on muslims. And obviously people who ignore allah's demands are not muslims, by definition.
This is not my agenda, nor hatred, it is a simple fact.
If it is not according to you, please explain why a country like Saudi Arabia, where this "minority" has as complete a freedom as they could possibly have anywhere, is a completely non-free country. Also in the west, the more muslims live in an area, the less free it is considered by both the muslims themselves and the (sometimes former) original inhabitants. This is not a coincidence.
Asking "why aren't muslims free", is like asking "why isn't red blue". In short the problem is in the definition. Someone who believes he is a slave is necessarily unfree. A free person is necessarily a non-muslim (doesn't believe in allah's statement that he is a slave), and a muslim is necessarily not free. There isn't any policy, there is nothing that can be done, to change this (except of course, changing islam itself).
In case you wish to argue the stupid point "sure he says that, but he also says
The difference between moderate muslims and "extremist" muslims is not that they think all infidels should be killed, but the manner in which this is to happen (a cruel, continuous global war versus creating denial and replacing original people followed by civil war). Kosovo, including the 1992 war is "mooderate" islam. Iran, 1972 and the 20-or-so years before is extremist islam.
Really ? Then why don't you try attracting attention to the statistical correlation between rape cases and muslim population in European cities. The correlation is real (and perfectly calculateable, and as you know this implies that either rapes make someone muslim, or that muslims rape (a lot) more than othres).
Let's see, why don't we, whether or not slashdot (where the "champions of freedom" rule) not burying this post, shall we ?
Mob mentality, which is being pushed like hell in all european countries, is the opposite of freedom. And it's gaining. "Human rights" are killing freedom of expression, and freedom of religion in all european countries. We just like to lie about it.
Same with other figures, like unemployment for example, it's at least triple or quadruple that of the US, depending on the country. But if you just look at the numbers, you'd say they're about equal. This is because we lie (most of the active population that doesn't work is, for various reasons, not counted).
"all non-muslims are lower than the filthiest of beasts because they reject islam" - quran 8:55
...) at all, or knowingly disobeys their own "God"
Unless you wish to argue that the quran isn't part of "moderate muslims" understanding. Oh by the way, the next verses are about how infidels should be killed when muslims have the chance.
So let's define, according to you who/what is a muslim :
-> moderate muslim : either hasn't read the quran (nor sunnah nor
-> extreme muslim : everyone else
Are we in agreement ? Why don't you go and check out whether or not the god of the muslims did or did not say this (quran is the literal word of god according to these poeple).